


Hands-On Lessons in Heat Preservation

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Basic Rv Repair and Palmistry, Bed-sharing (sort of), F/F, Ficlet, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27503074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: It's hard to maintain her pride, Britta finds, when she's shivering on the floor of an RV, under a musky, moth-eaten blanket that might've been pulled straight from the Baudelaire orphans' squalid bedroom in Count Olaf's house.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Britta Perry
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Hands-On Lessons in Heat Preservation

**Author's Note:**

> Response to an anonymous Tumblr prompt for some Brittannie fluff with Britta requesting to share a bed/blanket and snuggle with Annie since she's freezing cold in the powerless RV.

Britta gets the short end of the stick. Of course.

Or the short end of the most threadbare blanket, rather, which barely covers her knees. And sure, she'd played a role in shorting out the RV's power, but she hadn't Britta'd that alone. They all did. But, somehow, Jeff and Frankie each get a sleeping bag, Abed and the dean each score a quilt, and Annie snags an oversized blanket because Elroy hadn't yet built up a strong enough immunity to her gorgeous doe eyes.

"Whatever," Britta murmurs to herself, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering. "I'll be fine."

" _Liar."_

She thinks the voice in her head is referring both to the present, the here and now, and to her general life outlook, since she's in her mid-30s, staring down life as a bartender slash therapist, except isn't that _every_ bartender? No one who's happy with their life and well-adjusted becomes a regular at any watering hole, let alone one as depressing as The Vatican. She's not sure what's worse, the fact that she's memorized the orders of Lizzy, Jack, Big Joe, Clayton, et cetera, or that they expect to see her there nearly every time they come in now.

" _I should've blown this crap off and worked tonight. I sure as shit need the money for rent."_ Britta tries to burrow deeper into herself, to no avail, tries to insulate her body for warmth and her mind from self-doubt.

" _This is certainly a memorable experience, I suppose,"_ Britta thinks wryly. _"Not one I'm likely to forget soon. And at least here, I don't have to deal with creeps hitting on me."_ She's unsure if that tradeoff is worth being unable to sleep in the near sub-zero cold that's biting at her thighs and nibbling at her ankles, though, so she rises up on her knees and contemplates who might be sympathetic enough to her plight to let her share their sleeping space.

Jeff comes to mind first, naturally, but she knows from experience that when he's passed out in a deep slumber, he snores up a storm. She can hear him from halfway across the RV, and she'd rather not have the sound of a malfunctioning chainsaw ringing in her ears all night.

She mentally scrolls through the list of everyone else there, and Annie and Abed are the only other truly viable options. Fate decides for Britta, in a way, as she spots Annie stirring slightly in her blanket.

She tries not to think too much about the fact that she would've tried her luck with Annie first, anyway. It's not anything against Abed, and she and Annie are more acquaintances than friends now, in all honesty. But Annie seems more likely to at least consider sharing her blanket, and she's fucking freezing.

"Annie," she whispers, but the brunette doesn't hear her, so she crawls over to her spot and murmurs her name again.

"Britta? Whaddya want?" she yawns, her eyes closed.

"Can I—" she hesitates. Asking "Can I sleep with you?" seems like it'd be ammo for everyone to make fun of her tomorrow, so she rearranges her question. "Can I share your blanket? Mine is basically a newspaper."

Annie frowns even though she's half-asleep, and it's kind of adorable. "Can't be that bad."

Britta rolls her eyes, crawls back to her not-sleeping area to retrieve her blanket, and tosses it at Annie. "Is so. This thing is even tinier than you were freshman year."

Annie's frown deepens as she clutches at the flimsy material. "Okay, you have a point. Here you go." She lifts up her blanket and Britta gratefully scoots underneath it, glad to at last feel some semblance of heat in her toes and the tips of her fingers.

"Thanks, Annie," she murmurs, injecting as much warmth as she can into her voice, considering she's barely got any stored in her body. "G'night." She rolls over and hopes she'll drift off to sleep quickly—it has to be going on one in the morning, at least—when she feels Annie's hands tentatively gripping her shoulders.

"You ok, Annie?"

"Not really. You know I'm cold-blooded," she whispers back.

Hence why the thermostat in apartment 303 is usually kept in the low 70s throughout the winter, rather than the spartan upper 60s Britta had become accustomed to when she used to live by herself.

She really just wants to sleep, but she'd be even less equipped to do that without Annie's intervention, so she can offer up this small act of kindness. Just for a few minutes. "Roll back over and I'll be the big spoon for you."

"Thanks, Britts," Annie breathes as she flops onto her side, and Britta follows suit. She's surprised at how well their bodies fit together, at how Annie guilelessly slides a hand over hers—slung around her midsection, since she's not going to cop a feel of her boobs, or anything gross like that—and notes softly, "You're still cold, too. Is this okay?"

Saying yes is too much effort, so Britta just nods against the back of Annie's neck and thinks, _"Maybe this trip wasn't so awful after all,"_ as the two of them slip into an all-encompassing slumber together.


End file.
